Tasks

A task is the unit of work. It belongs to a project and is the anchor for comments, time, files, and AI actions. Linking it to a deliverable is optional.

When a task has a deliverable, the drawer shows that deliverable’s description and Done when above the task’s own notes. Those words are shared: Edit brief changes the deliverable, so every task linked to it shows the same text. Update the brief copies what this task says now — the distilled brief when one is current, otherwise the description, plus the acceptance criteria. If the deliverable already says something else, the drawer asks before replacing it. A task with no deliverable can Keep this as a deliverable. That creates one from the title and links it. You do not have to open Plan first.

Start the next task opens a new card on the same deliverable, in the first not-started column, with its own empty notes. Leave Wait until this task is done checked when the next card should pick up after this one. The next card then shows Continues from for this task’s description, acceptance criteria, and files. Comments stay on the task they were written on. Tickets do not use this.

A ticket is also a task (type: ticket) plus support details. Everything on this page applies. Differences are on Support desk.

Create a task

Open a project. From the board, table, timeline, or the composer, add a task. The drawer opens: title, description, assignees, status, priority, label, start date, due date, feature, recurrence, and more.

Suggest with AI (every plan) can pre-fill the form from project context. You still press create.

Under the description, Distill (in the task ⋮ menu) folds later comments into one current brief — the requirements as they stand now, not a recap of who said what. The hive keeps that brief so the next person does not spend tokens again. If the description or comments change, distill again from the same menu. It does not overwrite the written description. Distill needs a couple of sentences of description or comments combined — less than that, it does not call the model. Distill is hidden while you edit the title or description. See Assistant.

Each task gets a permanent number on that project. You see it on the board, the table, and at the top of the drawer.

Move to another project (⋮ menu) picks an unarchived project you can open. Subtasks go with a parent; moving a subtask on its own unlinks it. The task gets a new number on the destination. Status stays if that project has the same column, otherwise it lands on the matching category (or the first unstarted). Features come off — they belong to the old project. People who are not on the destination drop off the assignee list. Comments, files, and unbilled time stay with the task; time already on an invoice stays on the old project.

Copy to another project uses the same menu and the same project list. The original stays where it is. Subtasks are copied with a parent; copying a subtask on its own leaves the copy unlinked. The copy gets its own number. Status, dates, and the description come along, including pictures in that description. Features come off. People who are not on the destination drop off. Comments, files, and time stay on the original. Tickets are not copied this way.

Started from (on the right of the drawer) is where this task came from: a chat, a meeting, a comment, a feature, or a decision. Closed, it already shows that starting point. Open it to walk the trail, jump to the exact words, or pick a decision.

Acceptance criteria sit under the description when you edit: what done looks like, stated so it can be checked. Agents read them through Agents — the clearer they are, the less an agent has to guess.

Declared vs verified

Marking a task completed is a claim. The hive records who did it and through which channel.

• If you complete a task you are assigned to, and it has acceptance criteria, it stays Declared until a teammate who did not do the work presses Verify. You cannot verify your own task — not even as a manager.
• If an agent marks it done, it is always Declared. Agents cannot verify.
• If someone who is not assigned completes it in the hive (or the browser clipper), it is Verified immediately.
• Closing leftover tasks when a project is archived counts as ordinary done, not declared.

Declared shows on the board, the table, and My Work. Eligible people get Verify there and in the drawer. The drawer also names who completed it and how. Reopening clears verification; you can optionally record why (specification, execution, environment, or other). Managers can clear a verification without reopening (reason required).

Blocked by another task

If a task waits on another that is still open, the board, the table, My Work, and the drawer show Blocked by #12. The number opens that earlier task. Agents see the same list as blocked_by (and ready) on Agents. Finishing the earlier task clears the mark on the next load.

The project progress bar counts verified and ordinary done work only. A project of unverified agent completions can sit at 0%.

A task has one primary deliverable. Select it under Deliverable in the drawer. Also serves lists extra deliverables that this task helps without counting twice. Goals are not memberships. Completing a task updates its primary deliverable’s task count; it does not prove a client goal was achieved.

Who can edit

Action	Who
Create	Anyone with project access
Edit	Manager, or the creator, or an assignee
Move to another project	Same as edit, and you must be able to open the destination
Copy to another project	Same as move. The original stays. Not available on tickets
Delete	Manager only. The task goes to the project’s Trash, where it can be restored until the hive’s retention window removes it

Unassigned tasks fall to managers (and the creator). If Save or the status control is disabled, you are not on that list.

Status

Statuses are a catalog, not a fixed list of “todo / doing / done.”

• The hive default lives in Organization settings.
• A project can inherit that catalog, or override it entirely (not a merge) in project settings.

Every status has a category. Filters, progress, recurrence, and automations key off the category, so renaming “Done” to “Shipped” does not break the product.

You always keep at least one unstarted and one completed status. Completed statuses stay last in the catalog (and on the board) — they cannot be dragged into the open workflow or deleted while they are the only Done.

Category	Meaning
Unstarted	Not begun — default for new tasks, and the spawn target for recurrence
Started	In progress
Completed	Done — closes tickets and can spawn the next recurring task. Only verified or ordinary human done counts toward the project progress bar. An agent’s “done”, or your own “done” when the task has acceptance criteria, is Declared until someone else verifies it
Canceled	Out of scope — excluded from progress

Do not invent a “sort of done” status in the unstarted category. Progress and invoices will treat it as not done.

Assignees, labels, priority, due date

• Several people can be assigned. The first is the display face on cards. Replacing assignees is a full replace; only newly added people get the “you were assigned” notification. Named teams show up in the same menu: click a team to assign everyone who can take the task, click it again to take those people off. People and teams share one list; whoever you pick most often (a person or a team) rises to the top.
• Assignees must be in the hive and on the project (managers bypass the project list).
• Labels come from the hive catalog (up to 24). Set them in Organization settings, not per project. The color circle on each label opens a picker with suggested hues (or type a hex). Removing a label asks for confirmation; tasks that used it become unlabeled.
• Priority is low / medium / high / urgent.
• Due date is a calendar day.

On Studio+, the drawer can call the other assignees (starts the project conference and rings them). Hidden when you are the only assignee. See Chat and calls.

Subtasks

One level only. A subtask is a real task: its own assignees, status, due date, and time.

• Board, table, and map show top-level tasks, with a progress chip when there are subtasks.
• My Work shows the parent (with completed/total), even if you are only assigned a subtask. Open it to check items off — the subtask list starts expanded when the parent already has any. Each checklist item can have its own due date, independent of the parent. My Work sorts and tints the parent by the earliest of the parent date and your open subtask dates.
• Click a checklist title to rename it. Enter saves. Escape puts the previous wording back.
• Checking an item off can play a short cue, the same family as marking a task done. Turn it on under Account → Sound. That switch does not change the task Done sound.
• Deleting a parent moves it to Trash together with its subtasks. Restoring the parent brings those subtasks back. A subtask deleted on its own is its own Trash row.
• A long checklist title stays on one line. A text icon opens the full wording. A link icon means the title contains a web address; open it and that address is a link.

Recurrence

On a normal task (not a ticket), set daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly.

When that task first reaches a completed status — Save, or a Kanban drop — InHive spawns exactly one successor: same title, people, label, feature, and recurrence; status reset to the first unstarted status; due date advanced; new number. Completing it again does not spawn another.

Tickets never recur. Completing a project does not spawn leftovers.

Dependencies

Link tasks that block each other. Cycles are rejected. Those links are the edges on the mind map.

When a task is blocked by another, the drawer also shows Continues from — the earlier task’s description, acceptance criteria, and files right there, so picking up the work never means hunting for the earlier card.

Batch edit

On the table, My Work, and Schedule, select rows the way the OS does:

• Tick a row checkbox to select (adds without dropping the rest)
• Shift-click a checkbox or Shift+arrow for a range
• Space toggles the focused row
• Cmd/Ctrl+A selects all
• Enter opens the drawer

Clicking the rest of the row focuses it for those keys; it does not select.

While rows are selected, a batch bar floats over the bottom of the list. Filters stay put. It can set status, label, deliverable, due date, or assignees on everything you are allowed to edit. Rows you cannot edit are skipped, not a failed batch.

Due date can be a specific day, cleared, or shifted from each task’s own date (+1 / +2 / +3 days, a week, two weeks, a month, or a custom number).

Status across projects: if the selected rows do not share one catalog, you can set a category (started, completed, …) instead of a single status name. Each project then uses its first status in that category. Tap the i next to Status for that mapping.

Deliverable needs one project. If the selection spans projects, Deliverable stays on No change and is disabled; tap the i next to Deliverable to see why.

Managers can batch-delete.

Comments

Comments on a task can be internal (hive only) or public (visible in client-facing threads, including support email). The thread shows the newest first; Load earlier comments brings in the rest. A comment that appears while the thread is open flashes honey and fades, so a teammate’s insert is hard to miss. An @Name in a comment is highlighted; click a person’s name to open a direct message with them (Studio+). Hover a comment (or select it with the keyboard) to react — one icon, then a short emoji row — and to see the time, visibility, and edit or delete actions. Hover a reaction to see who used it. Several people can share the same emoji. Board cards show a comment count when there is at least one. Enter starts a new line (and continues a list). ⌘/Ctrl+Enter posts. Chat still sends on Enter.

Paste or drop an image into a comment or a description, or use the paperclip on the format strip. The paperclip and a drop also take a file — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, text, zip, and common audio or video — up to 25MB. Up to four photos or files. Click an image in a comment or a saved description to see it at full size, or fitted to the screen when it is larger. Download and close sit on the photo, and Download saves the stored file in the format you uploaded (a PNG stays a PNG). Anything that is not a photo downloads when you tap its name, including a document that was already on the comment. A bar shows how far that download has got. Same Downloads folder as Documents, including in the desktop app. Escape or a click on the dimmed page closes an image. On iPhone, the name downloads and then the system share sheet opens, so you can save the file or open it in another app. Public ticket replies keep those files in the hive thread — the email the requester gets shows [image] or [file], not the bytes. Files attached to the task save when you tap the chip; Documents still opens a preview when the browser can show the type. A zip on the task’s files is one of those chips.

While you are writing a description or a comment, a format strip sits on the editor (bold, italic, lists, links). Bullets, numbers, and a list inside a list stay that way after you save, in the description and in comments. The idle comment box is one line and hides that strip until you click in. The stored form is ordinary markdown, so agents and email keep reading the same text.

Type @ in the description to mention a teammate or a Team. They get a mention notification that opens this task. Saving again, while those same names are still in the text, does not notify them a second time. A person’s name in the saved description is a link to a direct message when chat is on.

Deadline risk

Cards can show watch / at risk / critical. That badge is rule-based — overdue, due soon but untouched, unassigned and due soon, stalled — not a model guess. It is free and the same every time you look.

Copy prompt

On a task, Copy prompt in the ⋮ menu copies a briefing for Cursor + InHive MCP. Enable it under Account → Profile (Team, write access). See Agents.

History of changes

Open History of changes at the bottom of the drawer. Each row names the person and what they did: status to a catalog name, the description, time logged, a comment, a file. Changes from an automation (or auto-compile) are credited to the hive’s AI name — the same name as the chat bot in Organization settings → AI. Connected agents can read the same timeline with get_task_history. Comment text is get_task_discussion, not the history row.

Related

Boards · Projects · Features · Time